Saturday, August 11, 2012

Anything is Possible on Speed!

It had been two weeks since the party - two weeks since that
fag, Ishmael, stated how lost I looked. I guess he was right. But, the main
question was - what was I going to do about it?

I have had enough. My fucking addiction had devoured
everything I held dear - friends, personal effects, my health. Paranoia had set
in. And, I had hit the end of the road.

As my emotions reeled in contempt, I hopped off the trolley
in downtown San Diego and trudged to work. I stood outside the theater and
finished a cigarette - my stomach was hurting. I contemplated on turning around
and not coming back.

Putting the cigarette butt out with my foot, I entered the
office ten minutes before my shift began. Bill stood there chomping on garlic
and stupidly glaring at me through his grimy, bottle thick glasses.

“Hey! There ya are - man! Bob is pissed at you. He says he’s
been getting bad comments about you from the patrons. Says that you’ve been
treating them badly and he’s losing money.”

I ignored him and began silently to count out the register -
my head spun from the amount of garlic that wafted through the air.

“I wouldn’t worry about it, though.” He continued chewing.
“Bob’s just mad ‘cause he can’t control Keith and he’s taking it out on us.”

Us? I thought. What’s this us shit?

It was an all-out effort to dump his frustrations on me and
me alone.

Mercifully, Bill left right at the hour and didn’t hang
around like he usually did. It was a relief - I really couldn’t take anymore.
My mind was crisp in contempt and hate for the place.

A moment passed and the phone rang, it was Bob.

The heavy-labored breathing, “How’s everything going?”

I knew this was going to be bad - he always started with the
buttering up routine before he dropped the axe.

The attempt at abuse continued, “If you wish to continue to
be in my employ, you had better get your shit together. I am getting far too
many complaints about you.”

A long pause for dramatic effect.

“Are you listening to me? Do you understand what I am
saying? What? What, you have nothing to say? You are spineless, you know that?
I should come down there right now and throw your ass out! You are lucky - damn
lucky - that I have to look for Keith or I would be there right now and throw
your ass out into the streets. Are you listening? Are you there?”

Long pause. I was seething with contempt.

“Say something if you want to keep your job, asshole!” He
bleated with the firm assurance that he was in total control.

“I’m here.” I finally said.

“You act as if you don’t even care what I am saying to you.”
Thank you for stating the obvious. “You can be damned sure that I will be there
first thing in the morning, you worthless fuck, and when I arrive, we will talk
in length about this shit! Got me?”

He hung up before I could answer. I was livid. That was it -
I made the decision. I ripped out a strip of aluminum foil and smoked the last
of my dope. Anger and meth do not mix; any addict can tell you that.

As the night dragged, I paced uncontrollably back and forth
in the office. Grudgingly admitting patrons at the box office - emitted waves
of toxic hostility to the ones who dared to bother me at the concession window.

Started to think - my mind spun in a vortex of
self-loathing.

“I have to stop, I have to stop!” Was all I kept muttering
as I walked back and forth the length of the office.

Nostalgia passed before me, all the friends that are now
dead or incarcerated, all the money that had been plundered and pissed away to
support my addiction, all the crap that I had put myself through. I was done.
Done!

It was then that I had made the fantasy of leaving into a
reality. There is nothing - nothing - better in the world than committing a
crime and getting away with it. I decided to take what I could from this place
– purely from spite - and leave for Texas as Diego had suggested.

I looked up at the clock on the wall; it read 3:47am. In the
theater all was quiet except for the grunts and moans of the movie - the still
of the night.

I casually walked over to the cash register and emptied it
out. Just the bills and left the coins. It was an okay night and the count came
to just a little over six hundred and fifty dollars. I knew that if I was going
to take this trip - I needed all I could muster.

The movie in the theater ended, so I cued up the next on one
of the two VCR’s that were in the office. With the other one, I disconnected it
and placed it onto the blue recliner. I decided to take that, too.

However, I needed more! And, I knew exactly where - on the
opposite side of the entrance hall was a service door where inside lay the
safe. And I knew, and Bob knew, over half the time that damn safe wasn’t even
locked. I frowned inward, I didn’t have the keys to the safe room, but that
didn’t stop me.

When the building was converted into a theater, the
contractors must’ve built this small room quickly. Though it was solid with
wood panels and frame, it didn’t quite reach the high ceiling, leaving the top
open.

I grabbed the folding chair sitting at the cinema’s entrance
and placed it by the door. Hoisting myself up, I scampered over the wall - my
stomach was scratched from the splintered wood frame, shirt smeared in dust and
old, flaking asbestos. I flipped myself over the top and landed hard on my feet
inside the cubical.

There lay the safe - dusty and impregnable. That filthy
fucker Bill had closed it this time! I tried pulling on the lever in the hopes
that it was only closed and not locked. It was shut tight.

Paranoia at the very act of what I was committing ran cold
up my spine. I had to split now before some nosy friend of Bob’s wandered up to
the concession stand and noticed that I must “Be Up To Something” and warn Bob
before I could get away.

I returned to the office, grabbed my jacket, snatched up the
pilfered VCR and headed out the door - not even bothering to lock up the
office.

Delusions of fiending sugar junkies doing unspeakable acts
in the concession area - frustrated crackheads grabbing handfuls of porn to
sell on the streets - wild eyed tweekers disassembling the office of every
electrical component - Bob arriving in the morning to an office stripped bare.
These crazy, meth induced comedic images spun through my mind as I darted out
of the cinema and into freedom.

My heart raced. There I was - tweeked out of my gourd as I
strutted down the dark and misty morning street to the nearest trolley station
carrying a stolen VCR - wires dangling in my arms like entrails.

Sniffs of disdain and loathsome glares from fellow
passengers as we silently waited in the pre-dawn night. I shifted my feet,
averted my gaze and waited - sweating and shaking. It was nearly 5am and the
train had already begun running.

Realizing that there were no patrols this early, I hadn’t
even bothered purchasing a ticket.

Jumping the train - weary, paranoid, the amped state of
being reeling in my head, the rush of what I had just committed and the thrill
of what I was going to do - I sat and listened to the clakclakclak of the rails
as we raced down to the Mexican border.

I made a mad dash across the border and hailed a taxi. I
wasn’t about to walk to my apartment - not with me tweeking, clutching a stolen
VCR, and a load of cash in my pocket.

I reached my room full of angst and apprehension. As I
tossed the VCR on the bed - I acted fast – grabbing my dusty duffel bag, I
crammed my ratty clothes and few personal items into it.

The general impedance of what I was doing and why began to
sink in and stopped me in my tracks. I sat on the corner of the bed and looked
around the dark, musty room.

A kaleidoscope of images swarmed in front of me - I thought
of Mario. I thought of the times we had scoring for dope, crazed late-night
drinking, the times at the theater. I was hoping to at least see him before I
cut out of town. I wondered how he would turn out in the months to come. Jail?
Death?

I thought of the parties and the people of this mad, insane
city that I had gotten stuck in - what would life be like in Ciudad Juárez?
Hell, I only had a vague idea where it was. I began to think on how I was a meth
addict and what that entailed. A fucked up mess, that’s what.

I remembered the over-exaggerated, tweek-fueled rant Mario
once went into when I asked his opinion of an addict.

We lay naked and next to each other on a sagging bed in a
dark, sweltering hotel room. Crumpled foils of scorched aluminum and an empty
bottle of Patron on the night stand.

I lay wracked in laughing jags at Mario as he gesticulated
wildly, sputtered his crazy tirade out like a faux PSA announcement, “The
common meth addict will kill and die for their dope, and can never be cured!
They will want it every day for the rest of their lives! They start by doing
lines, then smoke it, and eventually they graduate to ‘slamming’ using needles.
They never want to see anyone, unless they are tweeking. They are afraid of
everything, except death. All of their friends are parolees, and they ‘ain’t
shit’ until they have been to prison at least once. They steal everything in
sight, draw sexually explicit pictures, talk shit, disappear for days or even
weeks, will physically assault the people they love, slash their own wrists and
arms. They will lose up to 100 pounds in a few weeks. They will have spent all
of their money and lose any job they might have once had. They are
unemployable. They hate themselves. They will spend 5 to 40 hours straight
beating off and sticking things up their asses. Some will steal panties from
the apartment dryers and wear them. Damn tweekers will eventually accomplish
self fellatio! Anything is possible with speed!”

I chuckled inward at the nostalgic path my mind raced into -
a funky, alternate reality.

Because nothing was real, everything was permitted. Yes,
anything was possible from here on out.

I grabbed the VCR and walked down to the corner café to wait
for the pawn shop to open. After two coffees, I sold the machine for
one-hundred pesos.

By mid-afternoon, I was standing in the cavernous,
aircraft-hanger of a bus terminal in Tijuana and waited for my exile eastward -
leaning against a large, white column, smoking.

A flat, tinny voice squawked over the speakers in a language
I didn’t quite get as sullen, brown skinned locals milled about, a baby cried,
a fat man in a red t-shirt that read Happiness Is Coming! stood in black,
wraparound sunglasses - everyone silently staring at everyone else. I purchased
my one-way ticket to Ciudad Juárez, a Mexican city on the opposite side of the
Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas.

A fat steward announced to board our bus. I filed on with
the other passengers - mostly elderly. I stored my bag in an overhead
compartment and hunkered down in a seat to myself and waited to be thrown into
the unknown.

With a squealing of gears and a fart of black soot, the
mighty bus pulled from the station. I stared out the grimy window - saddened
and bitter. Yet, I had no regrets. Leaving a place in which no one would care
that I was gone.

I started east, knowing from here on out, I was a marked man
and must keep on my guard. I saw my ravaged reflection in the window - with
those tired, paranoid eyes of mine as they gazed back and I admitted to myself
- I did look truly lost…

My published works: (Also available on Kindle)

A story of excess and addictions.Click the thumbnail and buy a copy today!

Blew the Shot

Part biography, part horror tale, part touchingly emotional psycho-drama, this intriguing novel weaves up to the appalling incident behind William Burroughs' murder of Joan Vollmer. Click the thumbnail and buy a copy today!

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hobosexual

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Of Men and Maggots

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Dark is the Night

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Puta

Fractured romance south of the border. Click the thumbnail and buy a copy today!

Class Conscious Poetry.

Crazy, insane madness - set to verse! You can purchase a copy at the publishers estore by clicking on the pic!

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